Close... is pretty darn good.
Over the last week... we have been doing a deep dive into the research proven Triggers that help you get into the Zone when you swing a golf club.
When you are able to access the Zone brain state... It gives you the best chance of standing over a golf shot and knowing that you're going to hit a good shot.
It also gives you the best chance of accessing the highest quality swing patterns that you have trained.
When your mind is not in the Zone... your neurobiology, your emotions and your physiology can cause your swing to revert to old bad patterns.
This is the most common reason that you can go from hitting excellent shots to hitting really poor shots when you get under pressure.
Multiple neuroscience/physiology studies have shown that your swing patterns are not stored in your muscles and not triggered in your muscles.
They are stored and triggered in your brain.
No pop quizzes on the brain science though. ;-)
What is important to remember is that you don't have to get into the Zone every time you swing.
You just need to get close.
The Zone is awesome.
It is an amazing experience.
Close to the Zone is pretty darn good and much more achievable on a regular basis.
It is when your brain state moves far away from the Zone that your shots begin to deteriorate.
With my clients we do a lot of training to recognize what the Zone feels like for them personally.
You have to be able to recognize the Zone before you can train for it and learn to access it under pressure.
We also do a lot of training to make sure they know what it feels like when their brain state is close to being in the Zone.
You can play great golf by just getting close to the Zone consistently.
This is the primary purpose of developing the mental side of your pre-shot routine.
The Big Picture is getting close to the Zone for a high percentage of your shots will help you become a much better golfer.
Simply because you will be accessing your best patterns instead of your worst patterns.
We also work on recognizing when they are starting to slip into to a mental state that can only access poor patterns and lower quality shots.
Recognizing when your mind is slipping out of the optimum Zone Focus Range is a great way to make sure that you can reset quickly on the course.
This helps keep you from hitting multiple bad shots in a row or even having multiple bad holes in a row.
I call it a Focus Reset.
The key is you have to recognize you are slipping away from the optimum Zone Focus Range before you can reset to get back to it.
On Monday we're going to dive back into more triggers for accessing the Zone.
Later in the week we're going to explore some of the cues that let you know what it feels like when you're in the zone when you're close to the zone or when you're slipping into a focus state where you simply can't hit good shots.
Make sure to check back!
